


my feet don't need the ground

by polyjunnie



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: 00z are bffs, Blow Jobs, Crack, Excessive Swearing, Facials, Ghost Sex, Happy Ending, M/M, Masturbation, Phone Sex, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, Supernatural Elements, This was supposed to be a joke, Voyeurism, can’t believe i forgot to tag, casual side fuckbuddies nahyuck, donghyuck is morosexual, ghost au, god this sounds filthy but I PROMISE IT GETS PLOTTY KINDA, idk if i should tag fluff but there are def soft feelies too :0, no one dies who is not already dead, sort of fwb to loversish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:14:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyjunnie/pseuds/polyjunnie
Summary: “How are you such a…” Mark trails off, sounding frustrated.“Alluring, irresistible charm?”“Little devil,” Mark finishes.“Oh, says the literal ghost, who only shows up when people have their dicks out.”or: donghyuck moves into a new apartment, and horny insatiable ghost mark loses his damn mind every time hyuck tries to have a nice leisurely wank





	my feet don't need the ground

**Author's Note:**

> so this happened
> 
> prompted/inspired by [reem’s truly incredible dream](https://twitter.com/nohyuck/status/1133895767700062208?s=20), which just Begged to be written. i hope i at least somewhat did it justice <3
> 
> i really just had a lot of fun with this and somehow it became 17k ????? so set ur expectation level to ridiculous and hopefully you'll have fun with it too djdlkjd. mark's a horny ghost, nothing makes sense, barely any questions are answered, many orgasms are had, many feelings are had. enjoy [sparkly emoji]
> 
> this is by FAR the longest thing i've ever written so !!!!!!! shrieks !!!! ty to my cheerleaders, u know who u are <3 and both ur names are T so i'm like TT
> 
> title from the wonderfully fitting ghost boy by robotaki ~
> 
> eta that WROW ! this just hit 1k kudos and i am sooo ;;;;;;; touched ;; this silly little fic has gotten SO much more love than i ever expected, thank you all so much for every single read and kudos and comment and sub T-T ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡ i hope i can write some more silly fic for this acct someday ♡
> 
> i have also had [this @ on twt](https://twitter.com/polyjunnie) / [cc](https://curiouscat.me/polyjunnie) saved for a while and i just unlocked it, i prob won't use it too much but it's there if anyone wants to chat <3

Donghyuck is in _love._

His new apartment is sunny, and spacious, and everything he’d ever wanted. He’d saved up, waited for _years_ for this, trying to find somewhere affordable that he could finally have to himself. He’d fallen in love with this apartment the moment he walked in, a bright south-facing living room opening into a comfortably sized kitchen, soft yellow walls and rich wood floors. And something about it that just felt _right_.

And most importantly, now, it’s _his_.

“The previous residents were an elderly couple, very sweet,” the landlord Doyoung had smiled at Donghyuck, when he had come for a second viewing and to sign the lease. “But don’t worry, they just moved into a nursing home! No deaths here,” he’d added quickly, laughing awkwardly.

Donghyuck smiled, and didn’t give it a second thought.

☽

Moving is always a bitch, but Donghyuck is set on making it as fun and quick as possible, enlisting the help of his three best friends on a Saturday (with promises to feed them). He blasts his girl group playlist full volume on his Bluetooth speaker as they slowly fill the apartment with everything Donghyuck has to his name.

The new couch is in place for less than five minutes before Jaemin stubs his toe on it, and he flops onto it with a long whine, “Did you really have to move to the third fucking floor? You better plan to die in this damn apartment too, because I’m never helping you move again.”

☽

Donghyuck goes straight into one of his busiest weeks at his dance studio, spending days preparing for an upcoming show, and coming home to spend evenings unpacking seemingly endless boxes. Jeno shows up on Wednesday with take-out and an offer to organize his bookshelf for him, and Donghyuck is tempted to drop to one knee to fucking propose right then and there.

The apartment slowly comes together, and he loves it all, the artful display of his vinyl collection, the killer water pressure in his shower, the closet space in his bedroom, the soft new mattress he had splurged on.

All the exhaustion feels worth it when he can look around and call it home.

☽

But Donghyuck knows he’s been going too hard, can feel the stress tight in his shoulders and chest, and after a week of nonstop practice, Taeyong forces him out of the door early on Saturday with the specific command to _relax, and do absolutely nothing else._ So Donghyuck goes home and finally, _finally,_ takes some time to himself.

He spends the evening lazing around, knowing exactly what he really wants to do to relax, and finally enters his bedroom, closing the door out of habit. He crawls onto his bed with tired limbs, leans back and slowly palms himself through his sweatpants, pushes them down and spits in his hand to slowly stroke at his length, warm and firm.

Donghyuck’s mind wanders to the last time he actually got some, went home with some giant gorgeous foreign dancer who had no right being so giant and so gorgeous, who had kissed him so sweetly and fucked him so slowly, and then so quickly, bending Donghyuck’s legs back til he could kiss his own knees, made him see stars, and it’s been far far too long, because he’s spilling onto his hand within minutes, tension bleeding from him in waves of release.

He takes a moment to come down, dick softening under his hand, and when he leans to grab a tissue to clean himself off, he notices that his bedroom door is standing half open.

☽

He gets off again the next night, body still tired, quick strokes making quick work. He flicks at his nipples and comes with a gasp, and distantly registers, as he watches the long ropes of white spurt up and land across his stomach, that his door is standing open again. He looks at it curiously for a long moment, eyes drowsy, sure that he’d had it shut, before shrugging and looking back down at the mess on his stomach. He lazily runs a finger through a line of come, and thinks that he could easily come into a tissue or something instead, but, well. Maybe he likes the mess.

He hums thoughtfully, and brings his hand to his mouth, tongue darting out to bring his finger inside, and the framed photo on his shelf across the room comes crashing to the floor, glass shattering.

Donghyuck startles and sits up quickly, drowsiness vanishing instantly. He hops off the bed and looks around suspiciously, double checks the latch on his door, tries to feel if there’s a weird draft coming through, but finds nothing that seems out of the ordinary.

_Maybe the building just moves a lot,_ he thinks with a shrug. _Must be something that happens a lot on the third floor._

He cleans himself off and throws on sweatpants, and gets a broom to sweep up the shattered frame.

☽

His schedule stays demanding, and nothing else strange happens for another week, and the events fade from Donghyuck’s mind. The stress pays off when his best dance team’s show is damn near flawless, and Donghyuck finally starts to feel things settling down, feels like he can breathe again.

Naturally, this means more time and energy to jack off, and one evening finds him eagerly taking a shoebox out from his dresser and bringing it to his bed, looking thoughtfully at his small collection of toys.

He settles on his favorite dildo, dark blue, long and ridged, even though it’s a little bigger than he should do with how long it’s been since he last used a dildo (and even longer since he’d last been fucked, but, who’s counting). Whatever, he’s got the time, and he deserves this.

He lies on his back and works himself open slowly, torturously, pressing lubed fingers inside, one by one, soft whimpers spilling from his mouth and filling the quiet room. He thinks for a moment that he sees the light of his bedside lamp flicker, but then he crooks his middle finger just right, and his eyes squeeze shut, and he forgets to think anything at all.

When he finally feels stretched enough, he coats the dildo with more than enough lube and slowly works it in, and it’s such a stretch _still_, even after so much prep, and he _loves_ it, savors the feeling of it, how it catches, drags, and he presses it deeper with a smile on his face.

When it feels comfortable he shifts, turning over onto his knees and pushing his ass up into the air. He reaches behind him to work the dildo in and out with a slow stroke, and he lets out another long whine, muffled by the sheets his face is pressed sideways into.

The moment he finds the right angle he gasps, grips the dildo tighter, starts fucking into himself quickly, whimpers high and staccato and breathless with every hit, and he’s so _loud_, loves that he _can_ be so loud, loves the filthy sounds echoing off the walls. He reaches his other hand down to pull at himself quickly, already slick with the lube that had dripped down over his balls and down along his length. He sees the lights flicker again through half lidded eyes but has no time to think about it before he’s coming, pleasure crashing through him hard and loud and hot and wet, spilling onto the bed beneath his hips, drool soaking the sheets around his mouth.

He falls to his side, and the light bulb in his lamp shatters.

☽

He doesn’t get off again or say anything to anyone about it for almost two weeks, definitely _not_ because he’s spooked, but how the actual fuck do you tell your friends that there’s not only some sort of ghost in your apartment, but one that only shows up when you’re beating your meat? He can already hear Jaemin’s laughter, and no, he’ll not be having that conversation, thank you.

Then Renjun sits beside him on his couch one day and says, “Dude, I think your apartment is haunted. My cup of water was not where I had left it.”

Donghyuck freezes.

“That thirsty ass mother_fucker._”

☽

And he should’ve stuck to the Not Telling Anyone plan, because Renjun takes not even two days to casually drop the term _Donghyuck’s Horny Ghost Boyfriend_ over dinner, and Donghyuck has to spill everything _again_, and Jaemin and Jeno have to stop eating entirely because they keep fucking _laughing_.

“Isn’t it a little creepy, though?” Jeno says eventually. “I mean, that’s a total invasion of privacy, isn’t it? It’s not like he ever asked you if it was okay to, like, watch you. How would he, even?”

“How do you know it’s a he?” Jaemin asks, at the same time Donghyuck says, “I guess I haven’t asked him to stop.”

“Not saying no isn’t saying yes, Hyuck,” Renjun says with an emphatic point of his chopsticks. “You should give the ghost explicit consent to watch you.”

“I _don’t_ want him to watch me!” Donghyuck protests, and then whines, “stop laughing, you assholes! How am I supposed to survive when shit breaks every time I time I try to jack off? I’m a simple man with simple needs.”

“What if it’s a hot ghost, though?” Jaemin wonders. “Oooh, what if his soul is cursed to just be hot and invisible and horny and insatiable forever? Whatever he did in life to deserve that, he must’ve been hot.”

“Back off my ghost, Jaemin.”

“Oh, so he’s your ghost now, Mr. _I don’t want my kinky ghost roommate to watch me?_”

“Well he’s certainly not _your_ ghost-”

“Wait, wait, wait, what if it’s some old lady prude ghost who hates that you’re jacking off?” Renjun interrupts, to a chorus of _ewww_s. “Okay, yeah, gross. Hot ghost boyfriend it is.”

Donghyuck sighs and shoves noodles into his mouth. “Well. He’s got good taste, at least.”

☽

The next time he finally gets off it’s in the shower, because he can only hold out for so long, and he’s tired of creepy shit happening in his room, he’d like to be able to sleep at night, thanks. He braces a hand against the wall as he pumps his cock fast and hard, hand moving faster than usual, more frantic, an edge of nervousness sharpening his senses and creeping around his back.

He can feel his climax nearing and he groans lightly as he rolls his fingers over the head, and feels like a fool as he speaks into the empty bathroom with a strained voice, “let’s not – ah, ahh – let’s not break anything this time, yeah?”

And then his come is painting the wall, and the blood is rushing through his ears, and when he stops to try to listen, he hears nothing. He peeks his head out around the shower curtain to check the rest of the room and it seems perfectly normal, though he’s not sure if the tendrils of steam curling around the room seem thicker than usual, or if it’s just his imagination.

“Good ghostie.”

☽

Donghyuck grips the small purple vibrator that he'd just put new batteries in, and looks around his room at nothing.

"So, like, am I supposed to just pretend like I'm alone, or what? You do realize that the whole point of me getting this apartment was so that I could live alone, right?"

Of course nothing answers him. He sighs.

"Whatever," he mutters, mostly to himself, and grabs his lube, setting the shoebox onto the floor beside his bed, kicking his sweatpants off as he crawls onto it.

He starts touching himself lightly, teasing, already half hard thinking about which setting he wants to use on his vibrator, and absolutely not at all due to the unshakable anticipation of being _watched_.

He wonders if he should say something, give the ghost _consent_, wonders if the ghost would respect his wishes if he asked him to not watch. Then he rolls his eyes at himself and the whole fucking situation, huffing with frustration and focusing his attention back to the hardening dick in his palm, and settles on saying,

"Just keep on not breaking anything, okay? Deal?"

Silence, again, of course.

_I wish you could talk back,_ he thinks, and then isn't quite sure that he actually _would_ like to communicate with the horny ghost roommate that specifically haunts his masturbation sessions. But, whatever, either way. He's got business to attend to, and there is one thing he _is_ sure of, and it’s that he knows how to perform.

“Well,” he wraps a hand around himself and spreads his legs. “Enjoy the show, I guess.”

He spends a long time stretching himself, pushing his fingers in, works himself slowly, just like he likes. Occasionally he pumps into himself in short bursts, making himself squeal and his dick twitch. He's already coated in a thin layer of sweat by the time he grabs the vibrator, and he puts it in slowly, too, fucking himself with it a few times before switching it on and flipping through to a quick pulse setting. He writhes as soon as it starts massaging his prostate in waves, the direct stimulation making his hips jump up off the bed with a stuttered moan.

He plants his hands flat on either side of his hips and grips the sheets, grinds his hips with a broken rhythm, feeling the vibrator move inside of him, pressing it in deeper, and he keeps his hands firm on the bed and doesn't let himself touch.

He shivers, and becomes vaguely aware of a breeze starting to blow into the room through his open door. The air lightly ruffles the hair that’s not stuck damply to his forehead, raises goosebumps across his arms and chest where it brushes cool against the layer of sweat on his skin, shimmering and burning with stimulation and exertion, and it feels so, so _good_. 

He thrusts up into nothing, and a long, high whine squeaks out of him, so achingly hard, so unsatisfied, so fucking _desperate_.

Tears gather at the corners of his eyes, and he starts whimpering, and he doesn’t even know to who or what, but he’s pleading, gasping, begging, "please, _please_, I wanna - wanna come, I wanna touch, ple – _pleaaase_."

The breeze suddenly picks up and a gust of wind rushes through his room, and the door slams shut with a bang. Donghyuck jumps, his heart racing in his chest where he’s completely vulnerable on the bed, splayed out and writhing, overcome by the adrenaline shooting through his veins, the rush of it, the thrill of it, the pressure building in his stomach, so close, so close, _so close_.

And then the air brushes across his hot, oversensitive cock lying against his hip, and he swears there's something in the breeze, tendrils of something warmer and firmer and a bit like a caress running across the length of him, and just the lightest touch pushes him over the edge in an instant.

His climax rips through him fiercely, and his fingers clench so tightly into his sheets it almost hurts, his hips flying up, jerking aimlessly as lines of come shoot up in arches, and the vibrator inside of him milks it out for what feels like ages, til he’s spent, til he’s breathless, til he has to reach down and yank it out with shaking hands.

He collapses back onto the bed, limbs feeling like jelly. He lies there for a long minute, tries to catch his breath, looks up at his ceiling as his heart rate slows.

A tired, sated smile makes its way to his face.

“You liked that, then, huh?”

☽

**hyuck**: I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH MY GHOST

**renjun**: sounds like you did

**jeno**: does a handjob count as sex?

**hyuck**: No and it wasn’t a handjob it was the WIND

**renjun**: you LITERALLY started this conversation with “guys my ghost boyfriend touched my dick” ???????????

**jeno**: so you didn’t have sex with your ghost but you want to have sex with your ghost

**jaemin**: he definitely wants that ghost dick

**hyuck**: i hate you all

**jaemin**: this is hyuck  
**jaemin**: [mark me down as scared and horny.gif]

☽

Donghyuck absolutely does _not_ want the fucking _ghost dick_.

He stares himself down in his bathroom mirror and almost says it to himself _out_ fucking _loud_ before deciding he’s probably going out of his goddamn mind.

“I don’t even know your _name_,” he mutters half under his breath, and tries to put all ghost matters out of his mind entirely.

He resigns himself to jacking off quickly in the shower again, tries to ignore the thrill that shoots through him when the steam curling thickly around his body is moving far too purposefully, when it wraps around his skin, so close but not quite touching, when his gasp of an inhale as he comes is damp on his tongue.

When he finishes showering and moves to get out he freezes, one leg still in the shower, because there’s a word written through the condensation on the mirror. He stares for a long moment, feels rivulets of water running down his body, dripping from his hair.

_He wants to.... mark me?_ is his first scared thought, which he quickly dismisses with relief when he remembers, _no, dumbass, you asked for his name._ It’s his ghost’s _name._

And he can only stand and stare because it just sounds so ridiculously… human, so mundane.

Mark. _Mark._

☽

And so _maybe_ Donghyuck takes to occasionally casually talking into his empty apartment, obviously _not_ because he hopes Mark will show up at some point other than when he’s masturbating. He’s just a talkative guy.

Maybe sometimes he’ll look at the pile of dishes in his sink and sigh softly, “if you’re gonna be my roommate, can’t you at least make yourself useful too?”

And maybe occasionally he’ll look up from his phone to announce that “the guys are coming over tonight, so no funny business, okay?”

Or maybe one time he gets home after an exhausting day at the studio, collapse on the couch with aching limbs and whines into his living room, “Maaaark, if you can manage to touch my dick that one time, can you try to give me a massage or something too?”

Nothing ever answers him.

☽

_“Hyuckieeee, why won’t you fuck me in your fancy new apaartmeeent?”_

Donghyuck sinks onto his couch and rolls his eyes at Jaemin’s whining over the phone, how he can hear the pout in Jaemin’s slurred voice.

They’d hooked up plenty of times before, because why the hell not, when you’ve got a best friend right there that looks like _that_, and is unafraid to flaunt it, and say and take what he wants. But tonight Donghyuck had just laughed off Jaemin’s suggestive flirting and sent him home with a slap on the ass and a _good luck_ to Jeno.

And with Jaemin calling to purr in his ear in a low voice thirty minutes later, he still isn’t entirely sure why he said no.

_“Are you afraid of your ghost boyfriend? He can always watch us, I wouldn’t mind. Someone seeing you open me up.”_

Donghyuck suppresses a moan, because Jaemin is as ridiculous as he is enticing, and ignores the mention of Mark entirely, because no, absolutely no part of him reacted to it, thank you very much, so there’s no need to address it at _all_, thank you _very fucking much._

“Why are you such a damn needy bottom when you’re drunk, Jaem?”

_“Fuck you, I’m always needy.”_

Donghyuck exhales heavily, half laughing at Jaemin, half sighing at the arousal pooling in his stomach that hadn’t quite gone away since Jaemin had sidled up to him at the bar they frequent, whispered in his ear, alcohol on his breath, _wanna ride you so bad._

“Fuck you too,” he says, resigns, knowing his voice gives him away, clear as day. 

_“That’s the idea, babe.”_ Jaemin moans right into the receiver, long and low and guttural, like driving slowly over gravel, and it goes right through Donghyuck. _“I know you’re hard already, you have been all night. Touch yourself, Hyuck, come on, talk to me, tell me how well you’d fuck me. Do I have to say pleeease?”_

Donghyuck sighs again, this time from the relief of finally unbuttoning his jeans to fully palm at himself through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs, already so fucking hard because of Na fucking Jaemin. He slides his clothes down to pull his cock out fully, wraps his hand around himself. “You - nnnngg - you really need a boyfriend, Nana, I swear to God.”

_“You really need to work on pretending you don’t enjoy fucking me as much as you do.”_

“Get over yourself.”

_“Much rather get over you.”_

“You’re the worst.”

_“You love me.”_

Jaemin gasps and Donghyuck knows he’s started fingering himself, knows the sight and sound of Jaemin’s pretty long fingers coated in lube and disappearing into himself, the sight of thin hips and long thighs bracketing his, the feeling of him sinking down onto Donghyuck, all slick and tight and so fucking _hot._

The overhead light flickers on for a second before shutting back off, and Donghyuck’s breath catches as his heart jumps, and he looks around the room through heavy eyelids.

_“You love filling me up, ahh, love feeling me so tight around you. My fingers aren’t the same, Hyuckieee, I wanna feel you in... in me.”_

Donghyuck can’t bring himself to disagree, much as he tells himself he wants to, because god _damn_ if the image of Jaemin bracing himself on Donghyuck’s chest to bounce on his lap short and quick doesn’t have his hand and breath moving faster, harder, sharp through the haze of alcohol and arousal clouding his senses.

“Always so... _fucking... desperate,_ Jaem,” Donghyuck moans, hand moving faster as more precome drips out and slickens the skin under his fingers. “You like my cock that much?”

The lights flicker again, and it startles Donghyuck, this time the lamp in the corner of the room flashing too, and then his TV flicks on for a second and back off, and Donghyuck’s hand slows as his heart hammers in his chest.

Then he hears Jaemin gasp again, and he asks if Donghyuck wants to _hear_, lowers what Donghyuck assumes is one of his fucking _airpods_ to pick up the absolutely _filthy_ squelching sound of him fucking himself, and hates so fucking much how _hot_ hearing it makes him, because _that’s disgusting, Jaemin,_ but Jaemin just fires back, _fuck off, you love when I’m dripping, want your come dripping from me too,_ and Donghyuck is almost embarrassed by the long whine that escapes his mouth. Almost.

Donghyuck had gotten used to a lot of the weird shit happening when he got off, the flickering lights, gusts of wind from nowhere, the feeling of some _presence_ there, surrounding, watching. The rapid flashes of electricity surrounding him now, though, feel like something more, a stronger energy, intense, almost _reckless,_ almost like a _haunting._

Unease runs through Donghyuck, beneath his skin, mixes with his arousal and curiosity and alcohol and it’s all just so fucking _bizarre._

“Guess who’s decided to join,” Donghyuck says, with his best imitation of a relaxed voice.

_“Oh yeah?”_ Donghyuck can hear the smile in Jaemin’s voice. _“Too bad I’m not there, mmmm, think your ghost boyfriend would get jealous?”_

“You wish,” Donghyuck laughs with an edge of nervousness, prays Jaemin can’t hear it in his voice, prays Jaemin isn’t actually _right._ He hasn’t even told his friends that he knows his ghost’s name now, and prefers not to try to figure out why.

_“Could join us for a threesome, maybe?”_

“Fuck off,” he answers, both to Jaemin and to the hint of interest that shoots through him at the suggestion. 

The air and electricity around Donghyuck keep intensifying, escalating, lights flashing as pressure builds in Donghyuck’s stomach, as Jaemin’s voice of deep seduction is gradually replaced by a whine, high and stuttered.

_“I’m so – nnng, so hard, Hyuck, just from thinking about you filling me up, ah, ah,”_ Jaemin breathes, and Donghyuck knows he’s close, urges him on, _come on, Jaem, come for me,_ and then Jaemin is coming with a long exhale, Donghyuck’s name on his tongue.

Donghyuck is so close, too, grips himself tighter at the thought of Jaemin clenching around him like he does just before he comes, with the mayhem around him pressing him on, the _urgency,_ Jaemin’s heavy breath in one ear and the rush of air in the other, everything flashing, frantic, _electric,_ and he cries out as his orgasm hits.

The moment he does, he hears a loud buzz, and then his apartment is plunged into complete darkness.

☽

“TWO HUNDRED FUCKING DOLLARS?”

Donghyuck waits until the electrician has turned the corner all the way down the hall before turning around to storm through his empty apartment, ranting at the walls.

“I thought I told you to stop fucking _breaking_ things, you _asshole,_ come _on,_ Mark, we had a _deal._ Blowing a whole fuse box? _Really?_ Was it because I was getting off? Or because of Jaemin? Are you jealous? Angry? Just horny?”

He falls onto his couch and sighs loudly, defeated, letting his head fall back.

“I have _bills_ to pay, man. What’s your problem?”

A moment later he feels a brush of air across his skin, fluttering through his hair, gentle, warm, and he pops his head back up, looking around tentatively.

“…Mark?”

And then the air sounds almost like it has a voice, like a quiet conversation heard from far away, growing closer, and Donghyuck tenses up so tightly he could snap, quickly mentally notes the fastest way to bolt the _fuck_ out of his apartment.

The voice becomes clearer until Donghyuck can make out words, and he can hear the voice saying, _“-n you hear me? I’m sorry.”_

Donghyuck blinks. What the fuck. _What the fuck._

“What the fuck.”

_“I’m sorry,”_ the voice says again, and it’s clearer but still strangely hard to place, like it’s all around him, surrounding him, rather than in front of him, and Donghyuck can only sit with his mouth hanging open because it just sounds like… a regular _dude._

His brain and mouth work together to helpfully and intelligently repeat, “What the fuck.”

_“Donghyuck?”_

Okay, just a ghost saying his fucking _name._ What the _fuck._

“Mark.”

_“Yeah.”_

Donghyuck takes a deep, shaky breath and thinks he’s probably losing his mind.

“I’m losing my mind.”

_“No! No, I’m – I’m really here?”_ Mark says quickly, voice still bouncing around Donghyuck like molecules. _“Uh, ugh, sorry. I’m trying not to scare you.”_

“Trying _not_ to scare me??” Donghyuck asks, incredulous. “The ghost in my fucking living room is trying not to scare me, okay, cool. Cool. The shattered light bulbs and blown fuse have just been a friendly fucking hello, then?”

_“No! No, that was an accident, seriously,”_ Mark says quickly, apologetic.

“And you’ve just been here and able to talk this whole time?”

_“I mean, it’s kinda hard? I need to, like, really focus. I haven’t tried in a long time.”_

“But you’re finally speaking to me for the first time to…?”

_“Apologize?”_ Mark answers slowly, his voice gradually becoming less ominous and more focused from a point somewhere a few feet in front of Donghyuck.

Donghyuck breathes deeply and tries to process. After all this time. Just to say _sorry._ This fucking ghost.

“And you didn’t think I’d wanna talk before you started showing up and invading my privacy all the time?”

_“I didn’t – I, God, I’m sorry Donghyuck, I really don’t – I didn’t mean to intrude, it was like, an accident at first and then – you –“_ Mark speaks quickly, sounding distraught, and a slight breeze starts to pick up around Donghyuck.

“Mark,” Donghyuck tries to interrupt.

_“– and I didn’t even know I could affect stuff like that, and – ”_

“Mark!” Donghyuck says loudly, making Mark finally pause. “It’s… okay,” he says, gentler, knowing it’s probably against his better judgement. But it’s the truth.

The breeze settles around them, and when Mark continues, his voice is soft.

_“I promise I’m harmless, really. I really try not to be haunty and stuff? It’s.”_ He clears his throat, and Donghyuck wonders distantly if ghosts even _have_ fucking _throats. “It’s not really working, is it.”_

“Well, going all lights-flashy haunty explodey every time I whip my dick out isn’t really a great fucking start, Mark,” Donghyuck says, waving his hands around at his apartment around him and wiggling his fingers, hoping it hides the fact that they’re still slightly shaking.

_“I know. This is… a first, for me, too.”_

“Oh, so you _don’t_ usually go around breaking shit and haunting dudes jacking off all the time?”

And then the ghost fucking giggles. _Awkwardly._ It wasn’t even _funny_ but the fucking ghost in his living room is giggling awkwardly and Donghyuck is most definitely losing his mind because all he can think is that it’s _cute._

_“No.”_

“Ah, well I’m honored,” Donghyuck teases. “Nice to meet you officially.”

_“You too,”_ Mark answers, and it sounds as if through a smile.

Donghyuck’s heart pounds in his chest, and he doesn’t know what to make of any of it. He finds himself smiling back.

“Your ‘not haunting’ just cost me two hundred dollars, by the way, you horny shit,” Donghyuck complains, remembering that he’s supposed to be upset with Mark. “You got any fucking spectral cash to help me pay for that?”

Mark huffs another soft laugh. _“I would help if I could. Really.”_ And then, more seriously, _“I promise I won’t intrude anymore.”_

“Wait,” Donghyuck protests, smile falling from his face. “Mark, no – “

_“Goodbye, Donghyuck.”_

There’s a rush of wind, and then silence.

☽ 

[94 unread messages]

**hyuck**: whats up fuckers  
**hyuck**: sorry I was having a nice chat with my roommate

**jaemin**: we were debating how long it’ll take taeyong to ask ten out wait What  
**jaemin**: WHAT

**hyuck**: i said WHATS UP FUCKERS

**jeno**: your ghost talked to you??

**hyuck**: i bet on a date before the end of the month

**jaemin**: hyuck

**hyuck**: but ten will obviously ask yong out first

**jaemin**: Donghyuck Lee  
**jaemin**: …  
**jaemin**: >.>  
**jaemin**: are u REALLY not gonna say more abt ur ghost bf >:0000

**renjun**: donghyuck i swear to god i WILL come snap every single one of your vinyls in half

**hyuck**: try me bitch

**jeno**: :(

**jaemin**: wow  
**jaemin**: you made jeno sad you fucking monster

**jeno**: :((((((((

**renjun**: wow

**hyuck**: i still hate you all

☽

All Donghyuck faces for the next several days is complete radio silence.

He stares at the bathroom mirror as he brushes his teeth, eyes zoned out, unfocused on the spot where Mark’s name had been written out across it.

The more he thinks about him, the less Donghyuck can make Mark out at all. What kind of fucking ghost actually goes out of its way to _apologize_ for haunting? How old is he really? Why hasn’t he said anything sooner? Why is he so fucking _horny_? Like, relatable, but also, what the fuck.

Clearly, Donghyuck figures, the only way he can get any answers is by trying to get Mark to talk to him again, which, clearly, means he just needs to jack off again.

Which, nice, he was planning on doing that anyway.

But the next few times he lounges on his couch or his bed and slowly works himself to full hardness, hand pumping faster and faster until his belly is clenched and his eyes scrunch shut in pleasure, Mark is nowhere to be seen.

He gets off in the shower the most often, because it’s quick and there’s no cleanup, and he tries not to look around expectantly when he gets close, tries not to feel disappointment when nothing happens but a shot of heat in his hand and the dull hum of pleasure in his veins.

The steam around him just hovers and curls all _normally_ and Donghyuck thinks that maybe he got a little too used to abnormal.

☽

He does end up telling his friends about his conversation with Mark, though choosing to leave out some... _choice_ details, because Mark’s laugh making his heart go all _boom_-y in a maybe-not-entirely-because-of-fear way seems like a great thing to keep to himself, thanks.

Jaemin begs to come over alone and meet Mark for real through his own “methods” (_Do you think he’ll talk to me if I come fuck you in person?_), which Donghyuck refuses to allow, obviously not because he wants to keep his ghost to _himself_ at all, but just because he knows Jaemin will probably say some dumb shit, and he doesn’t want every light bulb in his apartment shattered or something. Obviously.

He can’t, however, stop his friends from greeting Mark loudly the next time they all come over, and he rolls his eyes when Jeno waves into the empty apartment first thing, with a _hi ghostie_ from Jaemin like he’s hiding a fucking pet dog. 

Renjun immediately turns to Donghyuck and requests a report of any further haunty activity.

“Wish I had anything to tell you,” Donghyuck answers, and hates just how true it is.

After dinner, they make their way into the living room to watch a movie, and Jeno pauses in the middle of the room and looks around with wide eyes. “Mark? Do you wanna... join us for the movie?”

Renjun freezes. “Woah, wait, wait. I swear I just felt a breeze. Guys. _Guys._”

“That was probably Mark leaving forever because of you three,” Donghyuck says, plopping down onto his couch. “If so, I owe you one.”

Jeno gives him a look that says _bullshit_ that Donghyuck refuses to meet.

“Don’t want us to talk to your ghost boyfriend, huh?” Jaemin smirks as he sits beside Donghyuck and then turns to speak to the room. “Don’t worry, Mark, Donghyuckie can’t keep you from us forever. Even if we all have to take our dicks out, too.”

“Is that a threat?”

☽

Another week goes by with no contact, and Donghyuck buries himself in his work. He clocks long hours at the studio, perfecting the details of his new choreography before preparing to teach it to his crew, tries to lose himself in music and movement, real and tangible.

At night he comes home to an empty apartment, and has to remind himself that empty was what he had _wanted._

☽

“I can’t believe he’s _literally_ ghosting you,” Jaemin says one morning, while they do their stretches in front of the mirror.

Jeno laughs loudly beside them while Renjun looks at them both with disgust.

“Never speak to me again, Jaemin.”

Jaemin just brackets his legs around Donghyuck where he’s sat on the floor, grasping his feet, and drapes himself across Donghyuck’s back, wraps his arms around his waist.

“You _suuure_ you don’t want me to come over?” Jaemin purrs into Donghyuck’s ear. “You know I’ll get his attention for you.”

“Yes,” Donghyuck sighs, letting Jaemin’s weight and warmth press his body down into itself. “I can handle this on my own. I have a _plan._”

☽

Donghyuck _loves_ his black dildo. It’s not the biggest, and it cost a bit more than he would’ve liked, but it’s nicely curved and textured, and has a suction cup on the end so he can stick it to the wall or the floor and sink down onto it, ride it _just_ right.

So he does just that one night, knees pressed near painfully onto his hardwood floor as he leans back and his toned leg muscles flex, lifting him up and down, up and down, so slow, so smooth, until his legs are shaking and his skin is sheer with sweat.

He tugs at his cock as he picks up his pace, aims his hips so every sink onto the dildo fills him with pleasure from his stomach to the tips of his fingers, and he feels the edge of orgasm creeping up on him, pressing around him.

And just before he comes, he cries out a single coherent word, repeated amongst the whimpers, the whines, as his hips jump and his legs jerk together.

Mark. Mark. _Mark._

☽

_“Donghyuck.”_

Donghyuck is cleaning up after his dinner the next night when he hears his name, and nearly breaks a plate as it slips out of his hands and clatters loudly into the sink. After the initial shock passes, he smiles quickly to himself, because _fuck yeah, it worked._ He grabs a towel to dry his hands and turns around to face his empty kitchen.

“Hey, Mark.”

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he repeats. “Where the hell have you been?”

_“You said my name,”_ Mark says, ignoring Donghyuck’s question.

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows. “So you _have_ still been watching me.”

_“No! I think it’s like a… like, summoning thing, actually? I think?”_

“Wait,” Donghyuck says, through a half-shocked laugh bubbling out of his chest, “I called your name while jacking off and actually _summoned you?_ Oh my god.”

_“Um, did you… not want me to come?”_

“Oh, clearly I’m good with all sorts of coming when it concerns you, Mark.”

_“Donghyuck,”_ Mark says warningly, almost scandalized, and Donghyuck enjoys this _so_ much.

He leans back onto the counter and crosses his arms casually. This is fine. Just a ghost. Just a chill ghost. Just totally-not-flirting with a chill, horny ghost that he keeps making _flustered,_ it’s fine.

“You left before I could finish talking to you,” Donghyuck says.

_“I… didn’t think you’d want to talk to me, anymore, I guess?”_

“I talk to you all the time, Mark.”

_”Yeah, but you said I’d been, like, ‘invading your privacy’ and stuff, I – ”_

“That didn’t seem to stop you before,” Donghyuck points out.

_“I really hadn’t even... like, considered it?”_ Mark explains slowly. _“I’ve been a ghost for a long time, Hyuck. I’m not used to… human rules.”_

Donghyuck considers for a long moment, and finally asks, “For how long, exactly?”

_“It doesn’t matter.”_

_To you, maybe,_ Donghyuck thinks with narrowed eyes. But he lets it go.

“For the record, obviously I was freaked out at first, but. I don’t know, I’m kind of used to having you around now? You may have noticed I’m kinda… into it, I guess,” Donghyuck admits reluctantly, crossing his arms, knowing his flush is showing through his feigned nonchalance.

_“You… really don’t mind?”_

“Mark, I literally said your name when I came last night.”

_“But you told your friends you didn’t want me t– ”_

“Do you think I _want_ my friends to know that I’m banging a fucking ghost?”

_“We’re not_ banging– ”

“Yet.”

_“Donghyuck,”_ Mark sighs, toeing the line of exasperation.

“So you don’t wanna bang me?” Donghyuck asks, lips pouted into an exaggerated frown.

_“Donghyuck….”_ Mark repeats, and sounds like he’d be blushing, if he had, like, blood, or a face. _“Shut up.”_

God, who knew teasing a ghost would be so _fun._

“Surely you’ve noticed by now that I’m not great at shutting up.”

_“Yeah, kinda,”_ Mark answers, amused.

“Wait til you hear me get fucked for _real,_” Donghyuck continues with a flick of his eyebrows. He feels something stir in his stomach and rolls his eyes at himself for it internally, because he’s supposed to be making _Mark_ all hot and bothered. God. 

A breeze immediately rushes around Donghyuck and he laughs. This guy is _so_ easy to get worked up.

_“How are you such a…”_ Mark trails off, sounding frustrated.

“Alluring, irresistible charm?”

_“Little devil,”_ Mark finishes.

“Oh, says the literal ghost, who only shows up when people have their dicks out.”

_“Only_ your – _I mean, not – not ‘people’. I don’t usually… show up. Like this. Not before you.”_

Donghyuck does _not_ know what to do with this information. So he does what he does best: he smiles sweetly, and flirts.

“I’m just that hot, huh? Make you lose control?”

_“You’re – you’re – well,” _Mark stutters and then huffs, and it makes Donghyuck laugh. _“I’ll let you get back to cleaning, now, or whatever.”_

Donghyuck does a brilliant job of not showing his disappointment that Mark is going, thank you very much. “Well, I’ll call if I need you to… come, for anything.”

_“Goodbye, Donghyuck,”_ Mark says emphatically, and Donghyuck just smiles.

“See you around, Mark. Or, well. Talk later.”

And with a rustle of wind, he’s gone.

☽

Donghyuck expects Mark to still be a little hesitant to show up again, given how easily he’d scared him away before.

He absolutely does _not_ expect to find himself being fingered in the shower literal _hours_ later.

_“Donghyuck,”_ Mark had said, soon after Donghyuck had gotten into the shower and started sliding his hand quickly over his length, expecting a quick and efficient wank. He’d shivered at the way Mark’s voice hovered right by his ear, snaked under his skin, made it crawl in the best way.

_“Donghyuck, I wanna touch you.”_

“Impatient much?”

_“Hyuck –”_

_“Yes,_ please, yes,” Donghyuck had breathed without hesitation, then, and gasped when he felt the warmth of an invisible hand covering his own where it held his cock. The touch had been tentative at first, a question, an experiment, and Donghyuck had whispered _how, how are you –_ and Mark had just said,_ I don’t know, I don’t know,_ and gripped him tighter, moved their hands together, made Donghyuck gasp again, and then again, and again.

And then he’d felt another hand on his lower back, sliding down, down, and Donghyuck had immediately reached for his body wash and pumped out a handful, smearing it onto his ass messily, and he knows it’s a fucking terrible option for lubricant, but _fuck,_ Mark’s hands are on him, teasing him, and he wants him _in_ him, _now,_ and he demands it, _Mark,_ put your fucking fingers in me already, please, _please._

And then Mark _does,_ and it makes his head spin, because it makes no fucking sense, because he can’t even fucking see Mark, because _god_ he’s stretching him open and pushing into him just right and Donghyuck really doesn’t care about any sense at the moment but _that._

“Yes,” Donghyuck sighs in relief, turning fully to the wall and bending over more to let Mark in, puts both his hands to the wall and leaves just Mark’s hand alone around his cock. He feels Mark slide a second finger inside and scissor them, moving around in him, and Donghyuck squeezes his eyes shut at the stretch, the pleasure, hears his whines echo back to him off the tile walls.

_“You feel so good, Hyuck, so good,”_ Mark says between slow thrusts of his fingers, and his voice is low, reverberating all around, unfocused, wild, rolling around like thunder. _“You do make me lose control. Everything you do – every – every sound you make.”_

He curls his fingers and rubs just right at the nerves inside Donghyuck, and his body twitches, clenches around Mark’s fingers.

_“Every time you fuck yourself,”_ Mark’s voice is by his other ear now, curling around him like smoke.

Donghyuck turns his head to the side toward the voice, pressing his temple to the shower wall, and he says with a smile and considerably more composure than he feels, “Knew you enjoyed that.”

Donghyuck hears a heavy exhale and swears he can feel a warm breath tickling his neck, brushing up under his ear.

“Think you can – ah – fuck me – ahh – better than I fuck myself with my toys?”

And then his eyelids flutter shut as Mark answers by thrusting his fingers into him quick, hard, picking up a rhythm that makes Donghyuck mewl at every hit, and he grips Donghyuck’s cock tighter, and Donghyuck presses his face into the wall and gives up on any coherent speech at all. 

All he can say is _Mark. Mark, Mark, harder, please, Mark,_ and then lightning flashes, around him, behind his eyes, through his veins, and he comes hard, letting out a long, high-pitched whine. He lets his head fall between his shoulders as his body convulses, legs shaking beneath him, and Mark’s hand and fingers gradually slow as Donghyuck settles, leaning against the wall bonelessly.

It’s quiet for a moment, and Mark’s fingers slip out of Donghyuck, and his hand stays resting on his ass.

Finally, he asks, _“Better?”_

_So much better._

Donghyuck smiles weakly.

“Maybe a bit.”

☽

_“Someone_ got laid.”

“Look at that _glow.”_

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Donghyuck Box of Dildos Lee finally got some real dick in the year of our Lord 2019?”

“Fuck off, Jaemin.”

“Was it Hyunjin?”

“Fuck.”

“Hendery?”

_“Off.”_

“Jeno?”

“Hey!”

“You wish.” 

“No I don’t.”

“Yes he does.”

“It was Mark, wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“Does it count as real dick if it’s from beyond the grave?”

“Donghyuck fucking a ghost should not count as getting laid.”

“Shouldn’t it?”

“Either way that ghost has more game than _I_ do, god damn.”

“You can all fuck all the way off.”

…

“Donghyuck fucked a _what?”_

“Ten, just back out of the room, you didn’t hear a thing.”

☽

“How the hell are the best handjobs I’ve ever gotten from someone who doesn’t even have a – nng – real fucking _hand_?”

Donghyuck stands pressed against the wall just inside his front door, jeans slid down his thighs just enough for his dick to be sticking out ridiculously. 

_"Feels real enough,”_ Mark closes his palm around the head and spins his wrist, making Donghyuck’s breath hitch, _“doesn’t it?”_

The scene is growing increasingly familiar, Mark getting more and more bold since The Shower Incident, as if that wasn’t fucking bold enough to begin with. More and more _impatient,_ then, maybe. He rarely gives Donghyuck time to even kick his shoes off when he gets home before pressing an ever insistent, ever invisible hand to his chest, backing him against the wall and sliding a hand down under the waistband of his pants.

Donghyuck thinks he should probably be used to the experience by now, but looking down and seeing nothing when the feeling of a warm hand is surrounding your cock is _just_ weird enough to still be a little (a lot) freaky every time.

This time, though. This is a first.

Because suddenly that warmth is much more… hot, and wet, and wait – it’s softer and it’s _slick_ and fuck _fuck_ that’s Mark’s invisible fucking tongue and invisible fucking mouth licking up and closing around Donghyuck’s dick, and there’s a gentle _thud_ as Donghyuck’s head falls back against the wall.

“Oh god. Mark.”

Mark takes Donghyuck into his mouth, just sucking at him for a moment before picking up a slow rhythm, holding Donghyuck’s hips and fucking his own mouth onto him. It’s _so much,_ all at once, and Donghyuck can only close his eyes and get lost in the feeling, the sound, of Mark sucking him off, and the fucking _slurping_ noises that he’s making leave heat pooling in Donghyuck’s stomach, have him about to come seriously embarrassingly fast.

Donghyuck rolls his head and looks down with wonder through half-lidded eyes at the _nothing_ around his dick. The very hot, very wet nothing.

“Hey, Mark. Mark.” His eyebrows scrunch together in thought.

It makes Mark slow.

“Will my come disappear if you swallow it?”

Donghyuck feels him pull back, slurp his mouth off the head of Donghyuck’s dick like a lollipop and swallow.

_“Um. I have no idea.”_

Donghyuck shrugs.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

There’s another pause as Donghyuck gazes down and he tries to picture what Mark would look like, looking up at him, cheeks flushed, lips wet.

“Wish I could see you,” he breathes, quieter, “wanna see your mouth around me.”

_“You do?”_

Mark sounds almost surprised, and Donghyuck blinks down at him. What kind of fucking question is that. 

“Mark. Of course I do.”

_“Really?”_

“Why would I not want to see what you look like?”

_“I don’t know, I… didn’t know you’d want to.”_

“You literally are sucking my dick, Mark, I think we’re at the point in our relationship where you can show your face.”

Mark doesn’t respond immediately, and Donghyuck tries not to overthink his choice of wording.

_“Um, I’m not even sure if I can? I didn’t even know I could do… all of this, before.”_

“Well, how did you make –“ Donghyuck waves his hands around the general vicinity of his dick still sticking out, wet, “ – all of this happen, then?”

_“I don’t know, I just kind of… wanted to?”_

Mark moves a hand to grip back around the base of his dick.

_“Just wanted to, like… touch you.”_

As he speaks he starts moving his hand slowly.

_“And wanted to taste you.”_

“Fucking _shit,_ Ma – ah,” Donghyuck cuts off with a gasp as he feels Mark’s tongue run up the underside of his cock.

He barely manages to finish saying, “Well _I_ want to see you,” and then Mark is taking him into his mouth again, hand still moving, and Donghyuck is already so close, on edge, so stupidly turned on by this stupidly skilled ghost boy and his stupidly hot ghost mouth.

“I’m – nnng, Mark, I’m gonna – ah,” Donghyuck sighs, hands grasping at nothing, scratching at the wall behind him.

And then Mark is pulling his mouth off, and pumping his hand quickly to finish Donghyuck off, and the moment before it hits Donghyuck opens his eyes and fucking sees him, a boy on his knees in front of him, hand around his dick, lips parted, wide eyes looking up at Donghyuck’s face, and their eyes meet with mirrored shock for a millisecond before come is spurting out and directly onto this boy’s face, and his eyes close as it falls into his mouth, over the ridge of his nose, across his cheeks. 

His, like, _stupidly beautifully sculpted_ cheeks. What the hell.

“Oh my god.”

Mark’s eyes flutter back open as he licks his lips and swallows what’s in his mouth, looking forward. His tongue darts out to lick the final drop of come from the very tip, and Donghyuck lets out an embarrassing squeak. 

He finally looks back up at Donghyuck and a bright smile lights his face.

“You can see me?”

“Oh my God.”

“Donghyuck?”

Donghyuck stares for a long moment.

He takes him in, high cheekbones, thin lips, wide eyes, black and… well, very surprisingly nicely styled hair, pushed back off his forehead. How the fuck does a ghost even have nice hair.

“Hyu–”

“Why didn’t you didn’t tell me you were CUTE?”

“Uh,” Mark says with surprise, and then laughter, and if Donghyuck thought it was cutest fucking thing to hear, he’s beyond helpless to seeing it, and it’s a little shy, too, which is even fucking cuter, and Donghyuck can’t believe that this is his goddamn life. “Was I supposed to?”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck says, like it’s obvious.

“Oh,” is all Mark says, still smiling up at him. He finally breaks their eye contact to look back down at Donghyuck’s dick softening in front of him. “Um. Should I –“

“It’s ok, I’ll, uh,” Donghyuck says awkwardly, moving to tuck himself back into his boxers and pull his jeans up, and when he looks back up, Mark is standing before him. 

He’s right at eye level with Donghyuck, very nearly the same height, which is just fucking weird, even though Donghyuck isn’t really sure what height he was expecting. Something about him just seemed a bit larger than life.

But here he is, standing before him, corporeal, at a totally average height, and a totally average face, except, no, that’s a fucking adorable face.

And it still has Donghyuck’s come streaked across it.

Donghyuck blinks, dazed.

“Guess we still don’t know if my come would disappear if you swallowed,” is all Donghyuck says, because it’s the first thing to come to his brain, which is completely malfunctioning.

“Oh,” Mark replies. “Next time.”

And then a smile spreads across Donghyuck’s face, and then he’s laughing, in shock, in disbelief, at the absolute absurdity of it all, at Mark standing there in front of him. Seeing his face and his smile and his fucking _facial_ is bringing up such a mixture of feelings within Donghyuck that he just cannot fucking _deal,_ and his shoulders shake with laughter.

Mark laughs with him, bright, and adorable, and Donghyuck is so beyond fucked.

“Do you need, like, a towel or something?” Donghyuck finally asks, still giggling. “Or can you, like, magic it away with your ghostie powers or something?”

“Uh, I think I need a towel? I don’t know exactly how long I can stay like this,” Mark answers, and then adds, “And I don’t… wanna disappear again quite yet?”

_God,_ he’s cute.

He follows Donghyuck into the bathroom and stands awkwardly in the doorway while Donghyuck dampens a washcloth in the sink. Their eyes meet in the mirror and Mark smiles at him, and Donghyuck’s heart does a ridiculous little flip flop, which he attributes entirely to some sort of lingering fear of the stranger-slash-ghost in his apartment. Obviously.

“So, ghosts still show up in mirrors, huh? That just a vampire thing, then?” He turns and hands Mark the towel, leaning his hip against the counter. “Wait, _do_ vampires exist?”

“Uh, no? I have no idea, actually.”

He starts wiping his face off, and Donghyuck takes the opportunity to check him out fully, eyes running from head to toe. He’s thin, wearing the _most_ basic, nondescript jeans and t-shirt, classic black Converse on his feet, and Donghyuck hates how damn well he pulls it off, how the clothes cling to his shoulders and thighs and make Donghyuck lick his lips unconsciously.

Maybe he’s just biased because Mark gave, like, really good head. Maybe.

_It’s probably the outfit he died in,_ he thinks suddenly, and dismisses it immediately when it puts a bad taste in his mouth.

He distracts himself with casually running his eyes down Mark’s body again.

“Are you hard?” comes out of his mouth next, somehow.

Mark drops the towel and it splats on the floor. He looks up, and then down, surprise on his face. 

“Oh. I guess I am.”

“You… _guess_?” 

“I – yeah?” 

Donghyuck pushes off the counter and takes a step toward Mark.

“Do you want to… take care of it?” 

“Um. I don’t know, I don’t, usually?”

Donghyuck looks at him with disbelief. “You…. ‘don’t’,” he deadpans.

“I didn’t know that I could!! I’m not usually so…” He gestures at himself vaguely. “Physical?”

“Oh my g– _Mark._ No wonder why you’re so fucking _horny,_ oh my God. _Mark._ You fucking – ”

He walks toward Mark again, kicking the towel aside and moving into his space, eyes raking down his chest. Mark’s back hits the door frame.

Donghyuck looks back up and directly into Mark’s eyes, and his voice is lower when continues, “You’ve never wanted to try?”

“Uh.” Mark’s breath is coming short and Donghyuck can feel it on his face as clearly as he feels his own heart racing in his chest.

Donghyuck inches the tiniest bit closer.

“Do you want to now?”

Mark gives a minute nod, barely even perceptible.

He’s so close that Donghyuck can see his pupils widen, deep black expanding into dark brown. His eyes are open so wide that he’d look almost innocent, if Donghyuck didn’t know better, if he hadn’t seen this face looking up at him from his knees, hadn’t seen his come fall across it, drip from his cheek.

“You look so _real.”_ It’s a breath, a whisper, a leaning in, and Donghyuck lifts a hand to touch the hollow of Mark’s cheek with his fingertips, brushes them down to his jawline. His skin is soft, and warm.

“I am real,” Mark whispers back, so quiet.

“How?”

The smallest smile touches Mark’s face. “I don’t know.”

And their faces are so close, and they’re holding their breaths, and Donghyuck feels a pull, Mark’s eyes like black holes pulling him in closer, closer, like gravity, and it’s so heavy, it’s so much, and all he needs to do is move his face forward and fall in, into this moment.

He leans their bodies together, one of his legs between Mark’s, and Mark’s eyes flutter closed at the friction, his head falling back the smallest bit, and the moment breaks, passes and lifts the pressure like a thunderstorm, and Donghyuck can breathe again, relief and disappointment mixing in his lungs.

He moves his other hand low on Mark’s waist, presses his fingers in tight as he grinds his hips and feels Mark hard and solid against him.

This, he can do. This, he knows Mark _wants._

“Is there anything you _do_ know, Mark?”

He feels himself starting to get hard again just from rubbing against Mark, feeling him, from the heat buzzing between them, from watching Mark’s eyelashes flutter, from seeing his eyebrows pull together in pleasure when Donghyuck presses in close, so close, moves his hips just right.

“I know I want your hands on me.” 

“My hands are on you.”

“You know what I mean.”

He slips a hand between them to unbutton Mark’s jeans and press inside, palms at him through the fabric of his underwear, feels him already fully hard and straining against them. Mark’s hips jerk and he lets out a deep breathy moan, his head rolling to the side, and then down to rest on Donghyuck’s shoulder. Donghyuck pushes his jeans and boxers down to pull his cock out to jerk him off properly, and runs his other hand up the back of Mark’s neck and into his hair.

“Hyuck,” Mark moans into his neck, presses his face into the warm skin there, breath hot as it brushes across his collar. “_Please_.”

His hands come up to grasp at Donghyuck’s chest, his arm, grabbing at him, pressing his fingers into Donghyuck desperately, and then Donghyuck flicks his wrist and Mark suddenly flickers, the weight disappearing from Donghyuck’s shoulder and hand, for just a millisecond, like he’s straining to hold on.

“Hey, stay with me, Mark,” Donghyuck whispers, so gently, so sweetly, and grips his neck tightly. “Right here, baby.”

Mark moans again and Donghyuck smiles at his reaction, mentally filing it away. He spits into his hand and picks up his pace, hand moving quickly, skin dragging on skin, so warm, so solid, so _real_, keeps whispering into Mark’s ear, _mm, so hard for me, baby, feel so good, Mark, come on,_ and smiles when Mark comes less than a minute later with another flicker of the lights, his hands clenching into Donghyuck’s skin, come spilling out into Donghyuck’s hand and spotting onto both their jeans.

Mark lets out the breath he was holding with a long groan, lips half pressed against the hot skin of Donghyuck’s neck. He keeps his head down for a long moment as Donghyuck lets go of his cock, other thumb gently rubbing the spot behind his ear.

Donghyuck tries and fails terribly to keep the smile off his face, and finally says, still quietly, “Wow. Can’t believe my horny ghost is a two pump chump. We might have to break up.”

Mark pauses for a second before groaning and laughing into Donghyuck’s neck. “Shut up.” Donghyuck can feel his smile against his skin. “It’s been a while, okay.”

He finally picks his head up and looks at Donghyuck, hair falling messily into his face, pink and flushed with warmth and sex and embarrassment, and Donghyuck feels fondness blooming in his chest. He feels the tug forward again as he looks at Mark, and can sense the last threads of denial that he wants to kiss him snap.

Instead, he brings his hand up between them, showing off Mark’s come covering it, and smears it between his fingers and thumb.

“Well. Guess this doesn’t disappear either.” He looks up at Mark. “Does you being a ghost have _any_ real benefits here?”

Mark raises his eyebrows in mock offense. He smiles, and then vanishes with a rush of air.

“Hey.” The smile falls from Donghyuck’s face as he looks around. “Hey!”

Mark pops up just behind him. “Yes?”

Donghyuck can hear the smile in his voice as he jumps and whips around, but Mark is already gone again.

“Mark! Stop that.”

_“Why?”_ Mark’s voice is beside him now, and then is spinning around him when he continues, _“Scared?”_

“You can’t scare me anymore,” Donghyuck says, and then curses himself for jumping when Mark whispers _boo!_ right into his ear. “Fuck off, Mark, I said _benefits,_ not cool party tricks, you spooky bitc–”

He’s cut off when a hand grabs around his wrist and yanks it up in front of him and Donghyuck tenses, just resistant enough to tug but not quite break himself free.

“What are you doing?”

Donghyuck opens his mouth to speak more, but is cut off again when Mark’s mouth closes over his first two fingers, and Donghyuck inhales, watches with rapt attention as the come on his fingers moves, sloshing around as he feels Mark’s tongue run between them. Then Mark appears for just long enough to meet Donghyuck’s eyes as his mouth pops off the tips of his fingers with slick puckered lips, and Donghyuck feels it all so fucking deep in his gut.

Mark lets go and disappears again. Donghyuck lets out his held breath.

_“I think I’m finally getting the hang of this,”_ Mark says, now behind him again, and an invisible hand slides around his side and down his stomach and palms at his semi, and Donghyuck lets out a whine, because he’s not sure if he can come again, but he’s _hard_ and he wants to and Mark is so warm and so _there. “You sure there’s no benefits?”_

“Mmm, verdict is still out.” 

And he leans back into Mark, still invisible, but whispering into his ear, curling around him like a cloud, like walking outside in the summertime, like getting back into a warm bed, and Donghyuck lets himself sink in. 

_“Let me convince you.”_

☽

Donghyuck’s mind keeps replaying it.

Not Mark sucking on his cock, or looking up at him with come streaked across his face, and not when he sucked his own come off Donghyuck’s fingers, and, uh, well, okay, yeah, his mind keeps replaying all of that, too.

But it’s Mark’s face buried in his neck, and the look on his face just after, the smile on his face as he looked at Donghyuck, the scrunch around his nose and eyes when he laughed. And it’s that fucking _pull,_ the tug on his heart and lips and Mark’s breath warm on his face, how he could’ve just leaned forward and taken him, tasted him.

It’s distracting, and fucking stupid, honestly, because Mark is a _ghost,_ and there’s no way this will end well.

Mark keeps showing up, to get him off and to get off, sometimes visibly, when he wants Donghyuck to see his tongue licking up the length of him, and sometimes not, when he wants to make Donghyuck’s heart race in anticipation, wants to surround him, surprise him, make him gasp, knowing he gets off on the thrill of it. 

He flickers, at times, but gets better at staying corporeal for longer each time. They’re jolting reminders, though, that this isn’t conventional, or normal, or probably even _right,_ no matter how good or _right_ it feels. 

Donghyuck can’t help but think that Mark should probably have a better idea of the physics of his whole deal, but then he remembers how softly he’d admitted, _I don’t usually show up, not before you,_ and apparently his heart doesn’t really give a fuck that it’s being stupid. Fuck hearts, honestly.

It feels good, _really_ fucking good, to have Mark’s lips on him, to have Mark’s fingers in him, and when he gets on his knees and ask Mark to fuck his mouth, it doesn’t leave much time for talking.

But, okay, if Mark is just manifesting through pure fucking horny energy just because Donghyuck is hot, he’ll take it for what it is, and try not to expect anything more.

He knows it won’t stop him from wanting it.

☽

He confesses everything to Jeno over take-out the following Saturday night, pressed together on his couch in the dark, Jaemin gone out with his ice skating friends for the night. 

Donghyuck feels anxiety that he didn’t even realize was clenched inside of him ease a tiny bit when Jeno actually _doesn’t_ laugh at him when he turns to him and says, “I think I have a real, whole ass crush on this fucking ghost boy.”

Donghyuck even tries to play it off with a laugh, adds something about his fucking _fantastic_ taste in men, but Jeno just looks at him thoughtfully and says, “How do you think Mark feels?”

Which is just, like, unreal, considering how ridiculous it is, and Jeno is probably the best person on earth, and Donghyuck would die for him, actually. Then he thinks about how Mark is _actually_ dead and sighs at his own very fucking rude brain for reminding him.

He sighs.

“I have no fucking clue, Jeno. Sometimes I feel like there’s… something. There. Like, when we’re not fucking. But I don’t know. He literally never even stays past fucking, anyway, I swear the guy has no personality traits except giggly and horny,” he counts off on his fingers.

“You guys are full-on fucking?” Jeno asks curiously.

_“No,_” Donghyuck answers emphatically. “I’m saving my Virtue, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, you’re a real saint.”

“Not everyone can maintain my level of righteousness.”

“You should really talk to Mark.”

Donghyuck huffs and pouts fiercely.

“I don’t want you to get hurt, Donghyuck,” Jeno continues. “Figure it out before you get in too deep.”

“Mmm, I do love to go deep.”

_“Hyuck.”_

He deflates even more. “What if he doesn’t wanna talk?”

“Make him,” Jeno answers simply.

“He’s _dead,_ Jen, what the hell am I supposed to say? ‘Hey, wanna go out with me, oh wait, you can’t, because you literally are haunting my fucking apartment to suck my dick for all of eternity.’” 

“You don’t have to jump into the deep end, Hyuck. Just start simple.”

Donghyuck heaves a deep sigh and flops back onto Jeno’s couch. 

“Why couldn’t my apartment come with a cute neighbor or mailman or something? Why did I get an awkward ghost with cheekbones who gives amazing blowjobs?” 

Jeno looks at him sympathetically.

“Must be the reward for all that righteousness.” 

☽

So, Donghyuck starts occasionally calling for Mark at times when he’s _not_ horny. Or at least, like, not _just_ horny, so he can still have something to fall back on if his ploys to get Mark to stick around are, like, way too painfully obvious. He can be smart about things, thank you.

It’s really totally 100% valid and necessary for him to summon Mark to help him move the couch out from the wall without scratching the floor to get something he really totally unintentionally dropped something behind it. By accident.

And then, a few days later, it’s really totally 100% understandable that he ask Mark to help him flip the couch up so he can put the sticky foamy slidey things onto the feet so it won’t scratch the floor at all, and invite Mark to sit with him on it after it’s back in place.

And, okay, it’s maybe not as totally 100% valid and necessary for him to summon Mark on a Friday evening solely to ask if his outfit looks good before he goes out with the guys, but, well, maybe valid and necessary are relative terms. And the way Mark looks him up and down with slow, hungry eyes, the way he fumbles to say, “uh, well, I definitely don’t know anything about fashion but, uh. Yeah. You look… good,” – well, maybe it’s good Donghyuck had his fallback plan for this one.

☽

“So, when are you finally gonna let us meet your ghost boyfriend?”

“When you’ve earned it,” Donghyuck answers without thinking, face buried in his bag that he’s digging through on the practice room floor. “And stop calling him my boyfriend.”

He can practically feel the eye roll that he knows Renjun is radiating in his direction.

“So, when are you finally gonna let us meet your ghost fuck buddy that you desperately want to be your ghost boyfriend?”

“Why do you wanna meet him so bad? Aha!” He finally surfaces from his bag, comb in hand, and starts running it through his hair in the mirror, still avoiding eye contact with Renjun. “He’s just a… dude? Dorky. Horny, ghosty. Awkward. What else do you need to know?”

“Hyuck, you know if any of the rest of us were seeing someone we’d all be introduced by now.”

“Yeah, well. He’s not just ‘anyone’, Jun.”

Renjun stays quiet for a moment, and Donghyuck finally dares to stop and meet his eyes in the mirror. Regrettably, because Renjun’s next words are:

“You really do like him.”

“Shut up,” Donghyuck answers, with no venom, quickly looking away again.

“I wanna meet him. Please?”

Donghyuck sighs.

“Maybe.”

☽

Donghyuck is seated on the edge of his bed, leaning back on one hand, the other gently wrapped around the back of Mark’s neck as he takes his dick down deeper into his mouth, burying his nose in the hair at the base.

“You must’ve done this a lot when you were alive,” Donghyuck comments, totally casually, as if it totally just now came to his brain and was totally not at all premeditated.

It makes Mark look up and pull off, and he confirms, “Yeah,” with a satisfied smile and lick of his lips, clearly taking it as a compliment. Which it was, of course. He’s far too good at this.

“Did you... have a boyfriend?”

Donghyuck knows it’s one of the riskier questions of the many that have been plaguing his mind to ask Mark. And he regrets it almost immediately when Mark’s eyes and the smile on his face turn sad. 

“Yeah.”

“Ah...” Donghyuck rubs his thumb through the hair on Mark’s nape comfortingly. “Sorry, Mark, I didn’t – ”

“It’s ok,” Mark stops him, and he does genuinely sound okay, voice sad but tinged with something bittersweet, something like nostalgia. Donghyuck still feels bad.

“Do you… wanna talk about it?”

“Um. Right now? My mouth is a little busy,” Mark points out, looking down.

“Uh, okay, yeah, fair. Carry on,” Donghyuck concedes, and Mark puts his lips back around the head for a second before Donghyuck continues, “will you tell me more later, though?” and Mark has to pull off again with a tiny sigh.

He seems to contemplate for a moment, looking up at Donghyuck curiously before nodding gently. “Sure.”

“Okay.” Donghyuck gives him a gentle smile back, and closes his eyes as Mark takes him back down.

After Donghyuck has come down his throat minutes later, and he returns the favor in kind, he tucks Mark back into his underwear and jeans and hops up to sit beside him on his bed. He bends one leg up and tucks it in so he’s facing Mark, and curls a hand around his knee.

He’s gotten used to doing this before Mark disappears - touching him, smiling at him, watching him while he can. Trying to ask him with his body and eyes to _stay._ And Mark will smile at him, blushing and sated, lingering like he wants more too. But then he’ll say an awkward _uh, well, I’ll go now, I guess,_ or sometimes a _thanks, Donghyuck,_ before vanishing with a burst of air. And Donghyuck watches him go, eyes lingering on the empty space he’d just occupied.

This time, Donghyuck smirks at him and says, “So, who taught you how to suck dick like that?”

And this time, Mark huffs a laugh, lounges back on the bed comfortably, and stays.

He tells Donghyuck about Jaehyun. Tall, beautiful, sweet, cutest dimples you’ll ever see, the heartthrob of the entire campus, and Mark’s first love. Well, Mark doesn’t say that last part explicitly, but Donghyuck can just tell, by the fond smile on his face, by the way he talks about their shared apartment, and the way Jaehyun’s voice sounded when he’d sing for Mark when they were alone.

“Anyway, we broke up, like, six-ish? months before I – uh, well, yeah,” Mark finishes, gesturing at himself. “Just wasn’t working out.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Really, it’s… it’s been a long time,” Mark says with a sad smile. His expression shifts  
to a small grin as he adds, “Anyway, he taught me a lot. And the sex, I mean. Wow.”

He makes Donghyuck nearly cry recounting the worst places they’d gotten up to their… adventures (behind the pulled curtain while Jaehyun was in the damn _hospital_), and Donghyuck fires back his own best story (oral in the walk-in cooler at the restaurant his first boyfriend had worked at, which was so fucking cold that the pants beneath Donghyuck’s knees stuck to the floor and ripped when he tried to stand), and they dissolve into laughter together, Mark slapping Donghyuck’s knee and scrunching his face in the cutest possible way with a loud, gasping laugh.

“And now we’ve both had freaky invisible ghost sex, so I guess that probably tops both our lists for sheer level of weirdness, huh?” Donghyuck comments through his smile.

“Yeah, probably,” Mark smiles back. As they settle he continues more thoughtfully, “Man, I really didn’t think I’d ever get to, like… do all this again.”

“Oh, so you had a lot of freaky invisible ghost sex before, too?”

“Shut up,” Mark scoffs with a laugh. “Not even just the sex stuff, but, just, like.” He glances down, eyes lingering where his own hand rests on his leg beside Donghyuck’s, just a hair’s breadth away. “Being, like, _with_ someone, you know?”

Donghyuck watches Mark’s face, the sincerity and awkwardness and exposure and _warmth_ written all over it and feels… well, terrified, honestly. Like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff with a bungee cord attached to his waist, not sure if the thrill he’s about to experience will end in the sound of a snap and a descent into the depths.

“I’m glad,” he finally manages to say, and dares to close the gap between their fingers, slides his hand over Mark’s own, dipping between them so their fingers are entwined. 

It feels so intimate, so unprecedented, despite the fact that Mark’s fingers had been inside Donghyuck, despite the fact that both their hands had just been wrapped around each other’s cocks earlier that night and so many nights before. This… This was something else entirely, the precipice of so much more, and excitement and anxiety stirs deep in his stomach. 

“I like having you here with me.”

Mark beams back at him, and Donghyuck chest lurches as he feels himself jump. 

☽

He doesn’t sleep well that night, or several of the nights after, the anxiety in the pit of his stomach only festering. He feels tension settle into his shoulders, and exhaustion seeps deep into his bones.

Even Taeyong notices, pulling him aside between afternoon classes on Thursday and resting a hand gently on his shoulder, asking if everything was alright, in the kind of responsible, caring way that Taeyong does best.

Donghyuck appreciates the concern, he really does, but there’s no fucking way he can explain to Taeyong that he’s worried by how much he’d very much like to kiss his undead roommate and is being haunted by the crawling fear of a doomed relationship.

“I’m okay, Yong. Promise. Just tired.” Donghyuck plasters on a reassuring smile for him. “Congrats on your totally shockingly unexpected budding romance, by the way.”

Taeyong flushes deeply and ducks his head with a soft _thanks,_ sufficiently distracted.

☽

By the time Donghyuck gets back to his apartment that night it’s late, and he’s starving, and exhausted, and wants nothing more than to shovel a mountain of ramen into his mouth and pass out. He releases a long-suffering sigh when he opens the cupboard to find that he’s out of the microwaveable ones, and grumpily gets water set on the stove to boil. He moves to the living room and collapses onto his couch, vaguely eyeing the kitchen to monitor it.

He wakes up an indeterminate amount of time later, and he looks around groggily, eyes heavy, and finds Mark crouching down on the floor in front of him, at eye level.

“Donghyuck?”

He remembers with a jolt that he fell asleep with the _stove_ on like a fucking _idiot_ and he sits up quickly, barely noticing a blanket that had been thrown over him falling to the floor as he whips his head toward the kitchen.

“Woah, woah, it’s okay!! I got it.”

“Oh,” Donghyuck looks back at Mark and pauses, then relaxes back onto his elbow. His voice is gritty with sleep. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Mark smiles, eyes darting up to look at the inevitable disaster that is Donghyuck’s hair. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

Donghyuck huffs a sleepy chuckle and brings his hands up to rub the drowsiness from his eyes.

“I actually, um, finished making it for you?” Mark continues, awkward. “If you’re still hungry? I came over to wake you up because it’s, like, getting kinda late.”

Donghyuck slows his motion and looks back up at Mark, frozen. His voice is low when he finally speaks.

“You made me dinner?”

The vague nervousness on Mark’s face disappears as he smiles. “Yeah. It’s in the kitchen. You seemed really tired.”

Donghyuck just blinks back at him.

Donghyuck is _rarely_ left without words. He’s proud of his quick tongue, how he always knows what to say to persuade, or change the subject, or lighten the mood, make people laugh, always clever, always quick.

The only times he’s left speechless are when he’s in the throes of sex, mind giving up and giving in to something more carnal, instinctual, no thoughts but the electricity running through his veins.

Somehow Mark keeps leaving him speechless, though, and it feels a bit like that same loss of control, the same _helplessness_ twisting in his chest, no thoughts but being _here,_ with Mark, fully and completely. 

(He can barely imagine how incoherent he would be, or _will_ be, when Mark is the one making him lose control and give in, pounding i-) 

“Donghyuck?”

Donghyuck blinks out of his thoughts. Literally all Mark did was make him _dinner._ And just fucking _ramen._ Can he chill literally ever.

“I’m starving.” A smile breaks across his face. “Thanks, Mark.”

☽

They don’t get up to anything beyond talking that night, and Mark doesn’t even _propose _anything sexual, and Donghyuck is grateful. As much as he enjoys blowjobs on demand as often as any man would want or need them, he’s fucking exhausted.

Mark even offers to help him clean up, making Donghyuck cringe when he reminds him of his own words from what feels like ages ago: _can you at least make yourself useful?_

Donghyuck answers by turning the corner of his mouth up and winking at Mark, “oh, you’ve certainly earned your keep by now, baby.”

☽

LEE HOUSEHOLD RULES  
1\. NO asking about his past  
1a. NO asking how he died  
1b. and just no fucking weird questions okay  
2\. NO freaking out if he disappears  
3\. NO flirting with him (i’m looking at you jaemin)  
4\. NO calling him my Ghost Boyfriend, my Horny Ghost Boyfriend, or any iteration of it  
5\. REMEMBER that I have the complete and unquestionable right to ban any and all of you from my apartment forever

☽

They break the rules within five minutes.

Mostly because Renjun asks, as they unload take-out boxes from bags, “So, can you... eat?”

Which is a harmless question, until Jaemin adds, “Yeah, what happens to it if you do? Does it disappear or do you like, take ghost shits?”

Donghyuck turns to him, mouth open and ready to scold, but Mark just laughs and starts to answer, “Uh, I mean, I’ve only swallowed Do-”

“OKAY, that is enough, thank you,” Donghyuck cuts him off quickly.

“Oooh? What kind of _delicious meals_ are you serving Mark here, Hyuckie?”

“Just get out the damn bowls, Jaemin. I knew I should’ve made you all sign a fucking waiver.”

☽

It goes shockingly well, ultimately, and Donghyuck both hates and loves how easily Mark fits into their dynamic, how comfortably he joins into their conversation, their stories, their laughter. It feels so stupidly _right._ Fuck his whole goddamn cursed ass life.

Mark seems genuinely excited to find out they’re all dancers along with Donghyuck (“Did you not tell him literally anything about us, Hyuck?” “He’s probably usually preoccupied, Jun.”), and surprises them all when he announces, “I used to dance, too.”

“Surprises” might be an understatement for Donghyuck, though, who had never heard Mark casually drop much personal information about his past unprompted literally ever. Except the one time Donghyuck had mentioned an ex who loved watermelon flavored lube, and Mark enthused about watermelon for, like, three solid minutes, even mentioning his _grandmother_ serving watermelon on summer afternoons.

He doesn’t say much more about himself but admits that he misses it, and Jeno so very kindly says, “we’d love to have you dance with us, Mark,” even with the underlying sad knowledge of the impossibility of it.

They leave late, when the night starts crawling into small morning hours. They all start texting the moment they get out the door (though Jaemin had already sent a _WHY IS HE SO HOT???? UNFAIR I WANT A HOT GHOST BOYFRIEND >:(_ within ten minutes of walking _in_ the door), and the consensus is overwhelmingly positive.

It’s a relief to Donghyuck, getting his friends’ approval that he hadn’t even let himself admit he’d wanted so badly. He watches them chatting for a moment, and then tosses his phone down on the couch, sinking back into it, tired.

“I like them,” Mark announces, appearing beside him. “They’re nice.”

Donghyuck turns his head towards him, and lifts a single eyebrow.

“They told you you talk like a SoundCloud rapper from San Francisco.”

Mark laughs. (Adorably.) 

“They’re nice _and_ they’re funny.”

“Not sure you and I hung out with the same people tonight, but ok,” Donghyuck smiles back at him. “They liked you too, by the way,” he concedes.

And God, looking into Mark’s eyes in this moment, this quiet, the warm yellowish light of the lamp shining warm on his face, his comfortable smile, how _glad_ he looks to have gotten along with Donghyuck’s friends… it just feels so _heavy,_ so important, like he just took Mark home to meet his fucking parents, and it’s both the relieving and horrifying admission that, _yeah,_ he wants him in the family, too. He swallows it down.

“Can’t see why,” he adds with a crooked smile, while his hand moves to Mark’s thigh, and his body says something else entirely.

☽

_“Hyuck.”_

Donghyuck just moans in response.

_“Donghyuck,”_ Mark repeats, fingers slowing where they’re pressing into Donghyuck’s ass, warm water falling around them. He appears fully beside him, and Donghyuck turns to find him stark naked, water running down his wiry frame, and Donghyuck follows it down, eyes still half lidded. 

Mark’s not shy, and he smiles as Donghyuck checks him out, bringing the hand not on Donghyuck’s ass to his own half hard cock, gripping it lightly and moving slowly.

He’s clearly peacocking, and Donghyuck rolls his eyes internally, both amused and turned on, because he _is_ hot, and it totally fucking works. Goddammit. 

He turns to Mark fully, laments the loss of Mark’s fingers in him but it goes breathless when he grabs Mark’s hip with one hand and pulls him close. He wraps his other hand around both of their cocks, aligned between them. They’re close enough that Mark can wrap his arm back around Donghyuck, pressing the tips of his fingers into the flesh of his ass. 

Mark’s face is so close, eyes closed with pleasure, and Donghyuck can see the drops of water on his skin, clumping his eyelashes together, rolling down toward open pink lips. It’s beautiful, _he’s_ beautiful, mesmerizing, and Donghyuck fucking _wants_ him, wants this, wants to taste him, wants to keep falling into his gravity, wants to hit rock bottom and press their lips together, wants to _crash_ int–

“I wanna fuck you,” Mark whispers, interrupting Donghyuck’s reverie. His eyes flutter open to look at Donghyuck, dark, _hungry._

Donghyuck breathes deeply, and force evicts his feelings with it, because that’s not what Mark is here for, not what Mark wants, and it kind of feels like some part of him is crashing anyway. 

What Mark _wants_ is to fuck him. 

But _fuck_ if he doesn’t want this too.

“Please.”

Mark gives him a bright smile.

“Yeah?”

“Stop smiling like you just won the damn lottery, Mark.”

Mark’s smile doesn’t falter.

“Maybe I did.”

Cheesy shit.

“Bed,” Donghyuck says.

Mark vanishes.

☽

Donghyuck turns the shower off and towels dry in _record_ fucking time, because he’s waited long enough for this, thank you very much. He’s still a little damp as he wraps his towel low on his hips and totally absolutely does not book it down the hall, shivering a little, wishing he’d gotten an apartment with an en suite.

But, well, this apartment turned out to be a good choice for other, better, reasons – reasons which were ideally about to fuck him into the next century.

He slows when he gets into his room, and stops in the doorway, hands on his hips. Mark is lounging on the bed, still fully naked, ankles crossed, arms propped up behind his head. 

“I didn’t mean right that second, asshole,” Donghyuck says flatly, and the smile on his lips betrays him.

Mark giggles. (Adorably. It’s always fucking adorably.)

“I was impatient.”

He disappears again and reappears standing directly in front of Donghyuck, startling him. Donghyuck pretends he didn’t jump.

“I never should’ve let you practice your ghost shit,” he says, not even trying to keep the smile from his lips anymore as he takes a step closer.

Mark inches closer too, challenging, and then Donghyuck blinks, and Mark is gone again.

His voice speaks from behind him the next moment, “But think of all the things I can do,” and he closes in around Donghyuck, presses his body completely against Donghyuck, chest to back, arms wrapping around his waist, a hand sliding down, down, voice deep and guttural in his ear, “and I know you like it.”

Donghyuck lets himself lean back into Mark, his head falling back onto his shoulder, and Mark keeps his hand moving so, so achingly slowly around Donghyuck’s skin, teasing, low, but not quite low enough to touch him where he wants, and Donghyuck wiggles in Mark’s arms. He can feel Mark’s dick slightly pressing into his ass through the towel, and makes him gasp when he rubs back into it.

“What happened to impatient, Mark,” Donghyuck complains with a whine. “Thought you wanted to _fuck me._” 

Mark waits a long moment before speaking, his hand stopping to rest low on Donghyuck’s stomach. When he does speak, his voice is just above a whisper.

“I do want you.”

It makes Donghyuck’s heart flip, and he’s grateful Mark can’t see his face clearly, because he knows his brows furrow the tiniest bit with a hollow ache, with how much he wants it to be true, fully, thoroughly, intimately _true._

“I want you,” Mark repeats, burying his face into Donghyuck’s neck, and Donghyuck feels the press of lips against sensitive skin, goosebumps erupting across his chest and arms. 

“All of you.” 

He kisses up Donghyuck’s neck, wraps his arms tighter around his waist in a full embrace. 

“All the time.”

It’s so much, _so much,_ so fucking much, and Donghyuck can feel his heart beating in this throat, in his ears, and dares to think that maybe, maybe, Mark means it.

He turns around, still caged in Mark’s arms. He knows he shouldn’t, knows the effects of Mark’s words are written all over his face, knows he should swallow it down and crawl onto the bed on his hands and knees, bury his face in the sheets, let Mark fuck him until both their come is dripping down his legs, but he has to see Mark. He _has_ to. It’s gravity, it’s physics.

He can’t bring his eyes all the way up immediately, not yet, and instead brings a hand to Mark’s cheek, runs the tips of his fingers along his skin, down to his jaw, his neck, just like he had the first time he’d seen him, the first time he’d touched him. 

When he finally summons the courage to meet Mark’s eyes, they’re wide, and beautiful, looking at him with some indiscernible emotion, almost a touch of fear, open, _vulnerable._ Donghyuck feels electricity coursing through him, deep, down to his bones. He breathes Mark’s name, and their faces are so close that Donghyuck can nearly feel Mark’s lips brushing against his own as he speaks. 

He’s still whispering when Mark leans forward and closes the distance.

It’s gentle at first, chaste, lips pressing against lips, frozen there for what feels like an age, though Donghyuck knows it’s only seconds. He _wants_ it to last an age. Then Mark opens his lips and finally begins to move, and his mouth is warm, and his movements are slow, as he kisses Donghyuck sweetly, so sweetly, so tenderly, so near _lovingly_ that Donghyuck thinks the warm saliva on his lips might as well be blood, as he feels all the contents of his heart spill out.

Donghyuck opens his mouth more, darting his tongue out to lick into Mark’s, and Mark lets out the tiniest moan, a voiced exhale, and Donghyuck can feel his throat vibrate beneath the tips of his fingers. Mark presses back, presses in, chasing Donghyuck’s tongue, and he tastes like warmth, like vapor, like Donghyuck is lost in a summer fog. He wraps both his hands up around Mark’s neck, cradles his head, closing around him, like he’s trying desperately to contain a cloud of smoke. 

Mark tightens his arms wrapped around Donghyuck’s waist, and they both suck in a gasp as their hips press together, still sensitive from before, and a jolt of arousal shoots back through Donghyuck, sharp and hot. 

He gives Mark one last, deep kiss and pulls back, separating with a wet smack. His eyes flutter open to find Mark’s already on his, and his cheeks are flushed, lips red and shining in the lamplight as they spread into a smile.

Donghyuck smiles back, dazed.

“Hi,” Mark says, after a moment.

“Hi,” he says back, dumbly.

Donghyuck laughs, because it’s so stupid in the best way, because he can feel Mark’s dick slightly pressing into his hip and can still taste him on his tongue and they’re just standing there smiling and saying _hi,_ because Mark kissed him, because he’s fucking _happy._

Mark looks happy, too. 

It makes him want to kiss Mark again, because he can do that now, so he does. It’s just a soft press of his lips against Mark’s for a lingering moment, until he can’t stop the smile from spreading across his face again, and he has to pull back. 

Mark’s smile back is so warm Donghyuck feels it fill him from the inside out. But then it falters, for just the briefest moment, so brief that Donghyuck almost doesn’t notice it. Almost.

He furrows his brows and moves his hands up to Mark’s cheeks, cradling his face.

“Hey, hey. What’s wrong, baby?”

Donghyuck notices Mark’s face twitch in reaction to the name, but it’s gone within a millisecond as his face falls.

“I can’t… I don’t –”

Donghyuck feels something within him threatening to break, but he looks at Mark encouragingly, desperately, wanting him to continue, wanting to know his hesitations but also sort of terrified to hear them.

“I’m kinda dead, Donghyuck.”

Oh. That. Donghyuck’s insides twist familiarly, already missing the brief reprieve from his anxiety about this very fact that his happiness had brought. He lets a bitter smile take over his face. “Yeah, I had noticed that, actually.”

“I don’t – ”Mark pauses, expression only growing more troubled, not finding any humor in it. He struggles for a moment, trying to find the right words, and Donghyuck rubs his thumbs back and forth on Mark’s cheeks, wills himself to be patient. “You deserve better than this, Donghyuck. You deserve normal. You know we... this… this can’t end well.”

Donghyuck looks back at him, crushed by the repetition of what he’d told himself coming out of Mark’s mouth, too, like an echo, like something he can’t escape. Chasing him, haunting him. 

“But you want me,” he says, suddenly annoyed. At the universe, mostly, for whatever this fated doomed bullshit is that it handed him. 

Mark’s face crumples, like an _of course,_ like it _hurts_. “Yeah.”

“And I want you. Fuck normal.” 

“Donghyuck -” 

“I want _this,_ us.” 

“For how long, Hyuck? How long will you want this? I can’t even leave the fucking apartment.” 

“I don’t care,” he insists, despite himself. 

“You _will,_” Mark says loudly, frustrated. “You have a - a _life,_ Hyuck, and I can’t _join_ it. I can’t live it with you, no matter how much I want to.”

“I still want you,” Donghyuck says stubbornly. 

Mark looks at him with a tight expression. When he speaks, his voice is pained, danger lacing the edges. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

“Then don’t.”

“It’s not that easy,” Mark breaks, looking away with frustration.

“Mark,” Donghyuck grips either side of his face, forcing Mark’s gaze back to him, and spends a long moment just looking into his eyes, the fire there, the passion, the _life_. It shifts something in him, decisively, seeing Mark here, present, with him, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. 

He presses his lips to Mark’s, slow but definitive. 

“Mark,” he repeats. 

He kisses him again, deeper. 

“You want me.” 

He kisses him once more, longer, eyes sliding shut. 

“And I want you.” 

Another kiss. 

“Here.” 

_Kiss._

“And now.” 

_Kiss._

“And always.” 

_Kiss._

“It’s as simple as this.” 

_Kiss._

Mark lets out a frustrated groan as he kisses Donghyuck back, hesitantly at first, and then something breaks, and it’s a push, a force, breaking through the tenderness and letting all his passion pour into swiping his tongue into Donghyuck’s mouth, into sucking Donghyuck’s bottom lip between his teeth. He squeezes his arms around Donghyuck tightly, Donghyuck’s back arching as Mark presses into him, surrounds him, fills him, covers him, all around, in every way.

_It’s as simple as this._

It’s as simple as Mark walking them across the room together, Donghyuck finally ripping his towel off and throwing it aside before falling backwards onto the bed. It’s Mark immediately climbing back over him to connect their lips again, Donghyuck reaching out for him, not missing a moment, a touch, because Mark is here, with him, and no fucking thing in heaven or hell or whatever the fuck else lies between can take him away. 

It’s Mark working him open slowly, their lips barely leaving each other for a moment; it’s Donghyuck not giving a fuck that his lips are wet and swollen and almost painfully _raw,_ because he loves it, because Mark is sucking on them so messily, so perfectly, because Mark _wants_ him. 

It’s Mark’s laugh when he’s _juuust_ about to push his cock into Donghyuck, tip hard and wet and teasing against his rim, and Donghyuck says into his ear in a low voice, “You probably won’t give me any ghost STI’s, right?” And it’s the way it makes Mark collapse with a cringe and kiss Donghyuck again anyway, through their giggling, like he actually somehow _loves_ Donghyuck’s bullshit, because he does, he _does._

It’s Mark just breathing hot into his mouth when they’re too far gone to kiss anymore; it’s his hand tugging on Donghyuck’s cock as Donghyuck wraps his legs around his waist, pulls him impossibly closer, deeper, begs him to _fill me up, please, baby, I want it, I want it._

It’s the way Donghyuck barely even notices that he’s nearly floating, that the air around them is spinning and rushing, when he finally feels release break through him and shoot out like a supernova, when he and Mark become weightless together, defying gravity, creating their own gravity.

And it’s the way Mark lies beside him after, the way he smiles when Donghyuck cradles his face and whispers _stay with me_, and pulls him close, and doesn’t let go.

☽ 

Donghyuck finds it on a warm Saturday in late September, as he’s cleaning his apartment, tucked into a corner on the floor of his closet. 

It’s heavy in his hand – a thick, silver ring, edges rounded and smooth. It’s entirely unremarkable until he notices a tiny crescent moon engraved on the inside of the band, next to a thin _MK_. 

He calls on Mark, just to show him, curious, and the _hey, look what I fou–_ dies on his tongue when he sees Mark’s face.

His eyes are fixated on the ring. 

“...Mark? You look like you just saw a gho–”

“That’s mine,” Mark interrupts, quietly.

“What?” Donghyuck’s eyes flicker between the ring and Mark, smile falling from his face. “Why is it here?” Donghyuck keeps his voice quiet, like Mark’s, careful not to break whatever sudden intensity clouds the air.

“My… my parents, they… They lived here before you, I –” Mark’s mouth opens and closes a few more times, at a loss for words, eyebrows furrowed. 

Donghyuck studies him, contemplating. Mark had told him as much already, curled up together at night, starting to open his past up to Donghyuck, voices quiet in the moonlight. Donghyuck could tell this was something important.

He finally looks up and meets Donghyuck’s eyes. They’re wide with surprise, confusion. “I didn’t know they had it here. I thought… I thought it was lost.” 

“It was important to you, huh?” He says it, more than asks. 

Something flashes quickly over Mark’s face.

“Yeah… yeah. It was.”

Donghyuck waits for a moment for him to say more, to explain, but Mark stays quiet, and Donghyuck forces himself not to press.

“Mark…” He blinks back down to the ring. “Do you – Do you think it’s…” Donghyuck trails off, and deep in his gut feels a glimmer of hope that he doesn’t dare entertain yet.

And then he turns around and walks out. He ignores Mark’s calling out and keeps walking, still in his house slippers, all the way out of his apartment and down the hall. He enters the stairwell and ignores Mark appearing and disappearing around him with increasing confusion and hops down the stairs quickly, taking two at a time, down and out of the building.

He gets to the edge of the sidewalk before finally stopping and turning around to face the building, heart now racing in his chest.

“What are you doing, Hyuck? You’re being w–umph.”

Mark is cut off as Donghyuck rushes forward to meet him, grabs his head and crashes their lips together, kissing him deeply. He feels Mark’s surprised tension fall away quickly as he melts into the kiss, and they stand together on the sidewalk, entwined with the warm September sun beaming on the tops of their heads.

It seems to hit Mark like a train, a sudden gasp in the middle of their kiss, pulling away, eyes wider than Donghyuck had ever seen them.

“We’re outside.”

Donghyuck smiles at him and squeezes his cheeks between his hands. 

“No shit, Sherlock.” 

“But –“

“Looks like I’ve got myself a fully portable ghost boyfriend,” Donghyuck says, voice dripping with giddiness, like he’s gloating, like he’s _floating._

Mark places a hand over Donghyuck’s where it’s resting on his cheek, runs his finger along the smooth metal now snug on Donghyuck’s ring finger. He smiles, and Donghyuck smiles back, and it’s full of hope.

**Author's Note:**

> 127 thousand skull emojis
> 
> hope u liked tysm for reading <3
> 
> i have many thots about more and if i do i might make this a series but i make absolutely NO!!!!!! promises 
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/polyjunnie) ♡ [cc](https://curiouscat.me/polyjunnie)


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